Does my Mac need a re-install?

[Jophster]

Hi people....
I love my mac, and I know people swear by them... but lately, things have just been falling apart on my mac...
For starters, note the weird graphics on the dock in the attachment.
Secondly, my mac doesn't always shut down, it sometimes stalls on the blue screen with the spiral thingy and other times it just stalls on a blank desktop.

Then I get other strange, irregular problems from time to time, I am wondering if I am doing something wrong or if I should just start again.

I have a RevA MBA, running Snow Leopard.

Thanks!
Joe.

 

[whiteangel777]

hi,

i recommend, that you make a clone of your harddisk with carboncopycloner. (http://www.bombich.com/). after that you can install your mac and you can see, if it`s a problem of your OS or maybe even your profile! if you reinstall, make sure you boot from the install disk and remove all partition of your mac befor! otherwise mac osx put your old system in a folder at you harddisk and it can be that it takes data from your profile to your new installation!

pil

 

[Kenndac]

I'd suggest that what you're seeing is a hardware problem with the graphics card. I saw similar corruption on my Mac Pro, and it turns out that the graphics card had a problem with its cooling and cooked itself to death over a year or so.

If you do reinstall and the problem is still present, take it along to an Apple Store and see what they have to say.

 

[Hmac]

I'd suggest that what you're seeing is a hardware problem with the graphics card. I saw similar corruption on my Mac Pro, and it turns out that the graphics card had a problem with its cooling and cooked itself to death over a year or so.

If you do reinstall and the problem is still present, take it along to an Apple Store and see what they have to say.

Agree - problem with GPU is a more likely scenario.

Do the backup, do the reinstall. Run hardware test. If it's a Mac Pro, consider upgrading the graphics card. If it's an iMac or MacBook/Pro, better take it in.

 

[whiteangel777]

how and with which tools would you run a hardware test?

 

[Arrandale]

Hi people....
I love my mac, and I know people swear by them... but lately, things have just been falling apart on my mac...
For starters, note the weird graphics on the dock in the attachment.
Secondly, my mac doesn't always shut down, it sometimes stalls on the blue screen with the spiral thingy and other times it just stalls on a blank desktop.

Then I get other strange, irregular problems from time to time, I am wondering if I am doing something wrong or if I should just start again.

I have a RevA MBA, running Snow Leopard.

Thanks!
Joe.

looks like a graphics card issue to me

 

[Dave Braine]

how and with which tools would you run a hardware test?

From your original Install Disks

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

 

[Prospekt]

It's a snow leopard bug. There was a thread that was a couple pages long before that showed the exact same issues and they were on different models as well. No one's really been able to figure out why some have it and most don't.

 

[whiteangel777]

thanks, it`s more easy as you are adapted to in the windows-world!